The United Nations' special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, will arrive in the Kingdom on Sunday for an official 10-day visit, during which he will seek to follow up on his last human rights monitoring mission in January, according to a UN statement released yesterday.

The visit will be Subedi’s 11th to Cambodia since he was appointed to the position in March 2009.

“As a follow-up to my last mission in January this year, the focus of this mission will be to further explore the progress made by the Royal Government of Cambodia towards establishing independent human rights institutions,” Subedi said in the statement.

“I also intend to use this visit to assess progress on the implementation of the recommendations made in my previous reports dealing with judiciary, parliamentary, electoral and land reform in Cambodia,”

he added.

The envoy last month spoke out against three draft judicial laws which he had previously praised as a chance to enact deep reforms, saying that he was “deeply concerned” that the Ministry of Justice was being granted powers over the courts.

In his last visit to Cambodia, he said he was “alarmed” by anti-Vietnamese rhetoric used by opposition leaders.